Repentant in Rioja

The second half of our northeast Spain excursion with Guillermo and Amada in late May was thankfully more subdued. From San Sebastián we drove to modest Haro, capital of Spain's famous Rioja wine region.

As we subconsciously knew but didn't behaviorally adjust, New World and Old World wine regions treat tourists much differently. New World wineries strive for worldwide recognition and buzz and host extravagant tasting rooms at all hours within merchandising palaces, in regions such as Napa/Sonoma, Australia, New Zealand & Argentina. Old World wineries have grown and stomped the same difficult half-hectare plot for 2,000 years, aren't trying to impress anyone and produce bottles primarily for the township instead of international tour groups, in regions for example in France, Italy and yes, Spain. Of course Old World proprietors welcome visitors, but visits are typically pre-planned, deliberate and personal, not a giggling tipsy tour down winery lane. So no surprise when we failed to arrange a tipsy tour after a late start Sunday.

Instead we explored Haro (last entry's map, 'C') one rainy evening and following day, the craziest darn wine capital I've ever seen. Unable to locate even a wine-tasting shop, with gruff if not impolite waitstaff and clientele milling in the eating and drinking establishments, amongst the dilapidated hilly haphazard plazas and narrow alleys, the centuries of wine profits must have diverted somewhere else. Unable to reconcile our mediocre Haro perceptions with the charm espoused by our several guide books, we chalked it up to bad weather and headed downroad to larger Rioja neighbor Logroño ('D'). A break in the rain, more pintxos bars per capita than any other Basque town and a lively Sunday locals-carousing scene were big improvements, although Rioja wines again seemed a sideshow at best.

Perhaps presaging our pintxo bar exorbitance, we planned to spend a repentant Sunday night in a remote hospice monastery, El Monasterio de Nuestra Señora de Valvanera, tucked into the mountains south of Rioja ('E'). Our reward for surviving the snaking and precipitous ascent into the forested foothills was garnering strange looks upon arrival from the local gathered congregation, chatting and fragmenting and departing from Sunday evening service as we parked and unloaded the car. Despite the hospice being a common overnight stop for wayfarers on the Pilgrimage to Santiago, we apparently hit them low-season as the only pilgrims that evening and received courteous if understandably exasperated service from the no-English skeleton crew staff during our stay. We inhabited the monastery's attached bar (those monks love to brew and drink!) just long enough to sample the local distillation, a sweet anise liquor (much better than Jäeger!) and purchase a bottle each of the monks' unlabeled rosato (dry rosé) and red wines from the affable, thick-accented bartender before closing. The wine was our only company in the sparsely ornamented hospice, the visit to which ended up being somewhat fun in a wacky, weirdly sequestered way.

Steph's and my portion of the Spain adventure ended (or so we thought) with the following day's visit to Pamplona ('F') before our flight out, Hemingway's old hangout with its annual running of the bulls fiesta as he immortalized in The Sun Also Rises. With no particular expectations, we found Pamplona lovely enough with a tasteful blend of antiquity and modernity and a different Basque style to its yet again out-of-this-world gourmet pintxos.

After bidding Guillermo and Amada farewell and more fun during their final days in Spain, Steph and I sat depleted in the small Pamplona airport, more than ready for our own bed that evening and a dose of Swiss sobriety. Alas, a brief rain squall and highly dubious Spanish logistics threw us a curve, canceling our flight and sending us via a packed two-hour bus ride to "nearby" Vitoria, from where we eventually flew to Madrid morbidly laughably late for our "assured" connection to Zürich. Sparing the details (no pictures either), we spent our final unplanned 18 bonus hours in Spain amidst a hundred squabbling irate Spanish and German tourists, jammed in lines for various shuttle buses and a free cheapo Madrid hotel night and dinner. But forget that garbage, Spain was awesome!

Second set of pictures: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2hd8fyj.51usqvsj&x=0&y=grm8j4&localeid=en_US